


The Devil's Own Brigade

by JWMelmoth



Category: Glee, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Does it count as major character death if they are immortal?, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Old Guard AU, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25628155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JWMelmoth/pseuds/JWMelmoth
Summary: Tumblr prompt: "Old Guard AU with Kurtbastian"
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 33
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ‘For he who lives more lives than one  
> More deaths than one must die.’ 
> 
> [Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol]

Kurt woke with a start, raising his forearm over his face, one sai braced against his pulse, warding off an invisible blow to his head, the other pointed up to attack. Nothing happened. There was no sound except the raging thump of his own heartbeat. He groaned.

The dreams, again- but it had been harder this time, more urgent, and left the vague taste of blood in his mouth. He stared at the darkness for a moment and forced his breathing to slow before lowering his hand and easing his grip on his weapons.

He settled back against the pillows. When he closed his eyes, the boy’s last moments flashed before his eyes; a scuffle, a threat from all sides, and the dull crash of a brick coming down on his skull. It was brutal- more fitting of ages past than the flickering neon lights overhead reflected in the puddles on the ground.

 _So many weapons, and yet some people still kill each other like it’s the Stone Age_ , Kurt mused, and he closed his eyes again, trying to get some more sleep. It felt like he was always tired these days, no matter how much sleep he got.

He woke at the first light, his face pressed against the flat of one of his blades in his sleep. There was something about the metal warming under his skin, a naked intimacy that a gun just could not offer. As his mind slowly caught up with him, a thought struck him.

What if the dream had felt more urgent this time- more real- because it had finally happened? He scrunched his eyes tightly and tried to conjure up the image again, recalling details; nighttime, a light rain- moonlight? Not much of it, because of the clouds. Street noise… he shook his head. It could be anywhere. To distract himself, he pulled his phone from the charger and scrolled through the local news.

**Student (20) dies after suffering blunt trauma to the head; third victim of gay bashing related crime this month.**

Without intending to, Kurt reached up into his his hair, his fingers raking his skull. He scrolled down and sucked in a sharp breath. Suddenly the face from his dreams had a name:

Sebastian Smythe.

And he would probably be waking up in a morgue somewhere in New York city right about now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Daftydraw for the beta! <3

A few computer searches later- the ambulance feed, routes, morgues in the vicinity- and Kurt had an address. It was still early enough; if he was lucky, he could be in and out without anyone noticing. In case there was a night guard, he mentally prepared a sad story. Being able to cry on demand had always been one of his fortes. Big eyes, a young appearance, he had long since embraced what had once been his downfall as a blessing; a tool.

He was lucky though, and found the place deserted. Nothing but the dead- and two imposters, even if one didn't know it yet. He checked his watch. How long did it take the first time? He couldn't remember, but he was glad he was on time. The boy would not have to wake alone.

Sebastian. It kind of felt like Kurt knew him already; he had dreamed of him many nights, had seen glimpses of his face (emerald eyes, a sharp nose, a birthmark on his cheekbone); he had felt him die, heard his very last thoughts. Bonds did not get more intimate than this. And yet he had no idea what he was like (alive). They would have ample time to find out- eternity, even.

A pounding and a shout shook Kurt from his reverie. It was showtime. He rose from his seat on the floor and slipped the sai he had been twirling into the hidden sheath in his sleeve. The metal door of one of the storage trays dented out- Sebastian must have kicked it from inside. Kurt hurried towards it, gripped the handle, and yanked it open. There wasn't much air inside (why would there be?) and what little there was smelled of disinfectant and old freezer. He pulled out the tray, and Sebastian, struggling inside the zipped body bag, nearly fell out.

Kurt steadied him with one hand and used the other to zip the bag open to his middle. The boy gasped for air and sat up, his bloody hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes wild.

"What the fuck!" he shouted, freeing his arms and pushing Kurt away. His hands went to his head, feeling his skull. He blinked, gingerly prodding the wound, which Kurt could see was closing under his fingers. It would be tingling, heated- and then disappear. He waited.

Sebastian took in his surroundings, narrowing his eyes at the metal surfaces, the shelves with equipment. Then he looked down on himself and the bag. "Is this some freaky low budget hospital where they put people without insurance?" he asked.

"No, this is the morgue," Kurt supplied. "I know it may be disorientating-"

"Believe it or not, it's not even the worst place I have woken up naked," Sebastian cut him off, shrugging. "But uh, why am I even here? I am not dead, am I?"

He studied Kurt's face skeptically. "Somehow I thought Hell would have more pyro effects and BDSM sessions. But if this is Heaven, shouldn't you be in a dress, playing the harp or something?"

Kurt narrowed his eyes. "You're not dead, and trust me, I'm not an angel," he said tersely. "You died, but you came back."

"I...what? Like a zombie?" Sebastian felt his neck. "Or a vampire?"

Kurt rolled his eyes. "No. You're still human...or something like that, anyway. You still need to breathe, eat, sleep- but you are immortal."

Sebastian scoffed. "Right."

Kurt arched an eyebrow and waited.

"For real?" Sebastian asked. "Come on. This is set-up, right? Like an intervention. 'Your gay lifestyle is gonna get you killed, don't do it again, with love, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. ps sorry not sorry if we traumatised you for life.?”

"No, I meant what I said. You were killed with a brick. It cracked your skull, damaged your brain. You lost consciousness and bled out. Your heart stopped. They took you here. Then your body regenerated and you woke up."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Kurt confirmed.

"Bullshit," Sebastian replied.

"No, you’re immortal. Just like me."

"You can’t die either?"

"I can _die_ \- but I’ll wake up again, too. I know you have questions, but we need to go-"

"Prove it," Sebastian said, crossing his arms over his chest. Kurt ignored the way it made his biceps look, because that was definitely not what he was here for.

"Prove what?" he asked instead.

"Prove that it’s not a trick. Kill yourself, and come back to life," Sebastian suggested casually.

Kurt wrinkled his nose and looked down on himself. "I am not killing myself," he protested. "This is a designer shirt!"

Sebastian scoffed again. "I knew it," he mumbled. "All of this is bullshit. Nice try. You can tell whatever radical religious cult you belong to that your little mission failed. I’m not gonna change. And that shirt? Even in this light, I can tell it’s a knock-"

In one smooth move, Kurt’s sai was out of his sleeve, spinning into his hand to bring the prongs forward, and he shoved it ruthlessly into Sebastian’s throat in the soft hollow over his clavicle. Sebastian’s jaw dropped in a voiceless gasp, staring at Kurt in disbelief and horror. For a moment, they were connected; Kurt holding him up with his weapon, their eyes locked- then he pulled it free and Sebastian, his eyes already dull and glassy, slumped forward onto his legs. Blood leaked from his wound onto the slab and dripped onto the floor.

"It’s not a knock-off," Kurt said stubbornly into the quiet morgue.

He walked over to a sink and rinsed the blood off his sword before sheathing it again. He returned to the slab with the body bag and waited. It would be faster the second time.

Sebastian stirred. He coughed, groaned, then pushed himself up to a sitting position. His hand felt his throat, and he worked his jaw. "What…" he rasped, "...the fuck?" He looked up at Kurt. "You just _killed_ me!"

Kurt shrugged. "And you came back to life. Wanna go again? I could do this all day." To accent his words, he shook his arm, letting the hilt of the sai slip into his palm.

"What? No! Are you insane?" Sebastian pulled back a little. "It really fucking hurt!"

"I said we’re immortal, not that we didn’t feel pain."

"Then why did you do it?"

"You wanted proof. I gave it to you. Look, we can agree that this is not a normal situation, right? If the people that work here catch you and find out you won’t stay dead, I’ll guarantee you they’ll do more than one run-though to test that theory. So it’s in your best interest to get the fuck out of here. I have a safe place."

He plopped his duffle bag onto Sebastian's legs. "Get dressed."

Sebastian frowned and zipped open the bag. Despite the situation, he let out a light chuckle. "Ah. Uh, yeah, I'm not wearing this, thanks." He lifted the patterned shirt up on one finger. "Flamingos? _Really_?"

Kurt clenched his jaw. He really had enough of this guy already. "If you’re feeling crafty, you’re welcome to fashion some kind of toga out of your body bag, but personally I think the shirt will draw less attention." He nodded towards the sink. "You may want to wash the blood off your chest, too."

Sebastian glared at him, then unzipped the body bag all the way down, grabbed the clothes and swung his long legs off the table. For modesty’s sake, Kurt turned around and looked at the wall.

"Take off your toe tag too," he suggested, and thought he heard the boy grumble a _fuck you,_ half muffled by cloth.

_It was like every few centuries, it got harder. Back when people believed in gods and spirits or some kind of divine plan, it was easier to convince them their situation had a purpose. But the more developed and educated people became, the more jaded and skeptical they were. With so many of nature’s mysterious uncovered, the inexplicable had to be a trick._

" _Hybris_ ," Kurt mumbled softly. "People these days think science can explain everything."

He was so caught in his resentment, he didn’t notice his mistake until it was too late.

Sebastian had taken Kurt’s clothes and left.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Daftydraw for the beta! <3

“Well, fuck,” Kurt cursed, his shoulders slumping as he stood outside the morgue, rain falling down on him. Despite the hour, the street was already crowded; cars, buses, bike messengers, pedestrians making their way to work - The boy could have slipped away anywhere; into a cab, down the subway…

His phone rang. “Yeah?” He paused. “I _did_ find him. And then I lost him.” His eyes still scanned traffic. Sebastian couldn’t have gotten far. 

“No, he ran off,” he argued, then paused to listen. “How the hell should _I_ know? One minute he was getting dressed and the next-” Kurt let out an insulted huff of breath. “ _Of course_ he was _naked_ , I picked him up at the morgue!”

A man passing him on the pavement turned his head towards him and frowned in distaste. Kurt ignored him.

“No, I wasn’t distracted! He is not _that_ good looking, Mercedes. You should know, you had the dreams-” He paused again.

“Well, get Terri on his tail, I’ll be at the safe house as soon as I can. I still need to go back and clean up in there, there’s blood all over the floor.” He sighed heavily. “I killed him. Why? Because he pissed me off, that’s why! I’ll tell you later, just find him, okay?” 

He hung up and put his phone away, glancing down the street one last time. “Next time I’m putting a tracking chip in the shirt,” he muttered.

**[36 hours later]**

“It doesn’t change anything,” Kurt said, his voice bridging the gap between the fire escape exit and the edge of the building. They were 42 floors up, over the penthouse offices of Smythe, Specter & Litt. “It’s just messy.”

Sebastian turned around, not moving away from the ledge. He scoffed as he recognised Kurt. “How did you know where I was?” he asked.

“I didn’t,” Kurt admitted. “But I know a little about the stages of denial all of us go through after our first death.”

“Second,” Sebastian corrected him. “You shish kebabed me at the morgue.”

“The first station is revisiting the place we died,” Kurt continued, ignoring him. He was right, but why give him the satisfaction? “So I went to the club where you were killed.”

Sebastian looked him up and down and a small smile curled on his lips. “How did that go? Doesn’t seem like your scene,” he said.

Kurt pulled up a corner of his mouth. “They carded me, which was kind of ironic because I ran a Speakeasy during Prohibition.”

“You-” Sebastian frowned and stepped down the ledge onto the roof. “That would make you over 90 years old.”

Kurt smirked. “It does. Immortal, remember?”

“So how old exactly-”

“Second station is usually family, loved ones-” Kurt cut him off. “Though I didn’t find you at your ancestral home either.”

Sebastian snorted.

“Ye-ah,” he let out, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “My parents and I went our separate ways after my graduation. And it’s no real loss. I think I did my mom a favour by going out this way. Turns out she prefers being mother to a martyr over being mother to a living gay son. I think she’s on _Sixty Minutes_ tomorrow. She’s really embracing this new role, I didn’t want to burst her bubble.”

Kurt chewed his lip. He had read that too. Though a lot had gotten better over time, not everything had. He took a few steps closer.

“You are right, though,” Sebastian continued, staying where he was but crossing his arms over his chest, “I did try to see my dad. But he was just doing what he does best; hiding behind his work.“ He scowled. “Locked up in his office with a DND sign on the door, and a secretary who takes that sign and his dick very seriously.” 

Kurt nodded. He had visited Mr Smythe’s office too, posing as a bike messenger delivering a condoleance piece; the careless way with which he had been instructed to leave it at the secretary’s desk told him enough about how hard the man had taken the news. Had Sebastian paid him a visit, that would have gone differently. 

“But none of this explains how you knew I’d be on the roof,” Sebastian interrupted his thought process. “Are you psychic or something too?”

Kurt shrugged, and casually glanced over the ledge. After checking off the first two, the third stage of denial was usually what Sebastian had been about to do - test his immortality for himself. The top of his father’s building had seemed like a logical step, but had Kurt not found him there, he would have started a tour past New York’s famous bridges.

“I was on the top floor already and it’s faster than the elevator,” he said lightly.

Sebastian snorted. “Right,” he mumbled. “Who _are_ you anyway? And how did you know I’d wake up at the morgue?”

“I was going to explain all of this at the safehouse, but you ran off,” Kurt reminded him pointedly. Sebastian narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the edge again.

“I go by Kurt this time around,” Kurt complied. “And we dream of each other. We are drawn to our kind. When one of us dies their first death, the others will know how to find them.”

“Our kind? What are we, like metas?” Sebastian asked.

Kurt shook his head. “No superpowers. Just immortality. And I found you to help you deal with that and make sure no one finds out. Like I said at the morgue, most mortals don’t respond very well to our inability to stay dead.”

Sebastian nodded and mulled it over for a moment.

“Okay, Kurt, so...If I promise not to tell anyone, we’re good, right? Because I got things to see, people to do…”

Kurt shook his head. “I can’t just let you go. You’re legally dead, Sebastian. What did you think you were going to do next? You can’t go back to your place. Everyone thinks you were killed and it has to stay that way.”

Sebastian frowned. “What about college? I’m only a year away from graduation!”

Kurt shrugged again. “Then you will have learned most of the things you’d need to know anyway. Maybe in your next cycle.”

“My next what?”

Kurt sighed. He really wished they could have done all of this in the comfort of the safe house. 

“In about fifty to sixty years, no one in your life will remember you, or if they do, they will not recognise you because you will stay as you are today. Assuming society hasn’t completely crumbled by then, you can always get back to college and get your degree.”

“Wait, _what_? Sixty years?? What am I supposed to do until then?” Sebastian asked. “I have friends!”

Kurt bit his lip. Terri hadn’t been able to find much on that- and apart from his parents, Sebastian hadn’t gone to see anyone. According to their sources, Sebastian was more of a brief acquaintance sort of guy. There was a time where Kurt would have disapproved of that, but it had passed with time. Sebastian automatically had a new group of friends now, a family, if he accepted them.

He tried to offer Sebastian a reassuring smile. “There are plenty of things you could do, Sebastian. Time is on your side.”

Sebastian nodded pensively and reached into his pocket. He took out his wallet. “I guess I should make a few withdrawals before the company blocks my card.”

Kurt shook his head. “You can’t do that. Dead, remember?”

Sebastian frowned. “How am I gonna live?”

“We will take care of your living expenses.”

“ _We_? You and the other immortals? How many are there?”

“Around here, we are a group of five. We team up to help out in situations where not being able to die is of a tactical advantage, things that would benefit society as a whole. We can always use some help.” Kurt shrugged. “You wouldn’t need to worry about money. The upside of immortality is that you can invest in some extremely long-term real estate deals. In return, you help us.”

Sebastian let out a huff of breath. “Yeah; I don’t know,” he said. “I have never been much a team player. And if I can’t die, it’s not like I need to worry about alcohol poisoning, overdoses or STDs anymore, right?”

Kurt raised a curved eyebrow. “What are you saying?”

Sebastian smirked. “I am saying it kind of sounds like the party is on. I could even take candy from strangers!” He winked at Kurt and started towards the fire escape. 

Kurt let out an incredulous scoff. “I just told you that with your gift, you could be anything you want: a bodyguard, a firefighter, a lifeguard- you could help natural disasters relief, go undercover to bust child trafficking rings or drug corps, fight against terrorism- and all you can think of is ‘I can finally drink and bareback my brains out’?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Pretty much. Hey, I only found out about this like three seconds ago. And you’re already recruiting me for your do-gooder team? Isn’t there like, an adjustment period where I get to mourn what I lost a little?”

Kurt sucked in a deep breath and counted to ten in his mind. His first urge to kill this boy for the third time in less than 3 days slowly passed. “You’d be putting all of us in danger if you draw attention to yourself like that. Please, just come and meet my team. If, after that, you still want to...test your limits...I’m sure we can figure out a way to do that in a controlled environment.”

“You realise ‘a controlled environment’ is the opposite of ‘a party’, right?” 

Kurt sighed deeply. “I only say ‘please’ once,” he let out through gritted teeth. “After that, my sai usually do the talking.”

Sebastian eyed his sleeves warily. “Okay, fine. But we’re taking the stairs.” He narrowed his eyes. “And don’t say we’re doing that as a favour to _me,_ because I know for a fact _you_ weren’t gonna jump anyway. Faster than the elevator my ass.”

“Oh yeah? How’d you figure that?” Kurt asked, cocking his head.

“Your shirt- it’s designer, isn’t it?” Sebastian smirked, and for the first time since they met, Kurt couldn’t help but smile a little.

**Author's Note:**

> I have not read the Old Guard comics and am just running with some concepts of the movie for the sake of Kurtbastian and immortal bantering ;)


End file.
